Board Games! Final Draft Nine Men's Morris Game Kit Manual (Project)

Thank you for purchasing the Nine Men’s Morris game kit.These instructions are intended for players aged 8 years and above. It only takes minutes to setup the kit, but it takes time and patience to become a Nine Men’s Morris expert.

Tip: Before you actually setup the kit and play, you may find that the fastest approach to learning and mastering Nine Men’s is to play it on the Internet http://www3.sympatico.ca/pesullivan/merrelles/English.htmlBe sure to have the latest Java version which can be downloaded at: http://www.java.com/.

How to Play Nine Men’s Morris – the Board Game

Nine Men’s Morris is a two-player game played with game pieces called stones (also called men) and a standard board. The board, included in this game kit, has 24 points for stone placement (Fig. 1).

The simple rules of Nine Men’s Morris are easy to follow.The game starts with an empty board. Each of the two players has nine stones, and the player with white stones starts the game.

Rules

Stages of the Game

Nine Men’s Morris has three stages:

1. Opening

During the opening of the game, players alternately place their stones (men) on any available or vacant point on the board. (See Fig. 2 for an example of stone placement on the board). After all the stones have been placed on the board, the game moves up to the next stage-the midgame.

2. Midgame

Here, players alternately slide or move one of their stones to an adjacent vacant point on the board. One of the main objectives of each player at any stage, is to create or close a mill (three stones arranged in a row – see Fig. 3).

Any player who closes or creates a mill at any point in the game, may remove one of the opponent’s stones. Stones that are not part of a mill should be removed first before removing stones that are part of a mill. (See Fig. 4.) If all the opponent’s pieces form mills, then an exception is made - the player is allowed to remove any piece.

As soon as a player has only three stones left, the last stage of the game (endgame) proceeds.

3. End Game

In this stage, the player with three stones left, who has the turn, may move (fly) one of the stones to any vacant point on the board. The pieces can’t be immobilized, but the player loses if the pieces are reduced to two.

The Nine Men’s Morris game ends through one of the following ways:

- The player who has less than three stones loses
- The player who gets immobilized or who can not make any legal move loses (see Fig. 5).

Game Strategies:

• In the opening phase or stage of the game, try to separate your opponent’s pieces from each other and block them from moving.
• Try to achieve a “mill on each turn” position (Fig. 6 ).

Brief History

• Nine Men’s Morris is one of the oldest games in the world. It is mentioned in Shakespeare’s “A Mid Summer Night’s Dream” • The game was popular among ancient Romans.• Game boards dating from the Ice Age had been found.• Nine Men’s Morris is also known as Morelles, Merrelles, Merels, Mill or Morris.

Related Games

Nine Men’s Morris is believed to be an extension of Tic-tac toe (Noughts and Crosses) which is of course, a very popular board game, as well.